Hargraves Center was music to the community’s ears

COMMUNITY NEWS

By Randy B. Young
Correspondent

Upon entering the front doors of the original William M. Hargraves Center in Chapel Hill’s Northside neighborhood, one is struck by the silence.  There’s a churchlike stillness in the air in this space that belies its history and the melodies that once echoed in this hallowed hall.

Originally built in the early 1940s, the Hargraves Community Center facilities now include a pool and bathhouse, a gymnasium, and outdoor playing fields and playgrounds. A bronze plaque stares out from above a handsome fireplace just inside the front door of the original building commemorating the presence of the Navy B-1 Band for which the facility was completed during World War II.  

Scroll down the 44 names of the African American musicians who made Chapel Hill their home in the early 1940s, and the history swirls around you. The swells of Southside Chicago Swing still reverberate about the downstairs living quarters. The music stirs in the rafters, and it spills out onto the local streets of this historic community. 

“Seagoing bellhops”

The elegant building with the sturdy stone foundation got off to a rocky start.

“The town could have earmarked money for it in the 1930s,” Rebecca Clark recalled in 2003, “but they didn’t.”  Clark was an African American political activist, civil rights organizer, and unofficial community matriarch who fought against unequal pay and workplace discrimination before she died in 2009.

The “Negro Community Center Association” secured a site and raised some funding, and the land was purchased in 1938. The land was then deeded to Chapel Hill with the stipulation that the center would be built. Work began in 1941 but was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. 

Through the 1920s and 1930’s, the Navy discouraged Blacks from joining their ranks. By 1940, only 2.3 percent of the Navy’s 170,000 personnel were Black, and most were, as the African American press termed them, “seagoing bellhops.” Pressured by both the NAACP and his wife Eleanor, President Roosevelt suggested that the Navy begin integration by assigning “good Negro navy bands” to key locations and bases.

A Navy Pre-flight School was established on the UNC campus in 1942, offering training to US servicemen (including former President George Bush). Despite their official naval affiliation, the Navy B-1 Band members were not allowed to live on the all-white campus. By May 1942, the original Hargraves Center was earmarked for the University’s Naval Pre-flight B-1 Navy Band members.

Forty-four African American musicians were housed in the present Hargraves Recreation Center for a 20-month wartime stay.  The band consisted primarily of in-state talent, comprised of students at NC A&T State University, Greensboro’s Dudley High School, NC Central University, and Hillside High School in Durham.

Of chords and discord

Not only did segregationist laws prevent the bandsmen from being housed on the UNC campus, but it also prohibited them from eating meals there, according to R.A. Fountain (www.rafountain.com/navy).

The band performed on many occasions in Kenan during World War II, but when they did, they and UNC’s custodial staff were the only Blacks present. 

“Nothing was open to us back then,” recalled Calvin Morrow, the last surviving member of the local Navy B-1 contingent before he died in 2021, marking the end of an era. “There might have been a couple of places where you could eat, but certainly not on campus or downtown Chapel Hill. You wanted to be really careful if you ever left barracks.”

Still, the musicians made their presence known in Chapel Hill with a beautiful noise and a stirring step.

The band marched up Roberson Street across Franklin Street to arrive on Carolina’s campus for work in daily parades that thrilled their neighbors, the R.A. Fountain website said.

The Navy B-1 Band parades to and from Northside and the UNC campus were popular among both residents and Naval Pre-flight trainees.  Photo from UNC Libraries’ NC Collection.

“The children here heard the music, and they knew the route of the band going down in the morning in the summertime when they were out of school,” Clark said. “The band came right down Roberson Street across Cameron Avenue, and they were in full uniform. It was really something to see—all those boys in their white uniforms. It made us all proud.” 

Among the kids watching the marches to and from campus were Rebecca’s sons Doug and John Clark, of the renowned local party band “Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts.” “This is how all of the kids around here got exposed to music,” Rebecca Clark added.

The band also played concerts for the general public.

“On many Sunday afternoons, they would do a concert out on campus at Forest Theater at UNC,” Rebecca Clark said. “Everybody crowded down to hear them – Blacks and whites. They just filled up that place.”

Ending on a good note

Perhaps the true lasting legacy left by the Navy B-1 Band was a love of music.

Clark said that the band members passed on their knowledge whenever they could, inspiring her children and scores of young would-be musicians. By the time the bands were being shipped off to the Pacific in 1944, the streets of Chapel Hill were alive with music, and budding musicians practiced on every porch stoop.

“All the children all over the city began to get interested,” Clark said. “All the mothers would have folks coming in and teaching (their children).”

Navy B-1 Band members played and provided music lessons—most free of charge—to aspiring young musicians in the Northside neighborhood.  Photo from UNC Libraries’ NC Collection.

Music in the schools received a boost as well, particularly in Chapel Hill’s all-Black Lincoln High School.

With the end of World War II, the departure of the band left a hole in the Chapel Hill culture, but the rest was not silence, as musicians left behind music stands, instruments, and other musical equipment to Lincoln High, sowing seeds which would grow to inspire HBC bands and drumlines.

The music plays on…

After World War II, many of the bandmembers returned to North Carolina to attend North Carolina A&T University, and many of them subsequently became educators,” said R.A. Fountain.

In the decades since the 1960’s, Hargraves has evolved into nothing short of a recreation complex. Reunions in 2007 and 2016 saw the return of many band members, before the final two—Simion Ozias Holloway and Morrow both died in the early 2020s, ending an historic era.  

For some, Northside’s Nate Davis Sr. Gym and Fred Battle Basketball Court, A.D. Clark Pool, and Hargraves Center promise a chance for a brighter future. The complex also reflects a bright and storied history that should never be forgotten—not in Black History Month or any month of any year.  

It all started for the sake of song, but the beat goes on.

Shown here, the original Hargraves Community Center still stands as a testament to the first segregation of the US Navy.  The site was recognized by the NC African American Heritage Commission in 2023.  Photo by Randy B. Young.

A Dartmouth College graduate, Randy B. Young first worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter in New Hampshire, then in communications at UNC for over 30 years. He maintained an award-winning newspaper feature covering Recreation and Exercise in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County. Retired and living in Chapel Hill, Randy continues to write for regional publications both locally and in New England, and his book, And the Stars Flew With Us, is available through Amazon and at independent bookstores. He coaches track at Chapel Hill High and has a photography business, Pierless (sic) Photography. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocal Reporter.press.